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Presentation High School plans memorial service for Comey

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

Presentation High School graduate Barbara Comey was following her love for the city of lights and Parisian culture by signing up with an au pair agency.

Comey enjoyed her time in Paris, but was looking forward to spending the holidays back in California. She even had her ticket ready. Tragedy, however, intervened when Comey was locked out of her host family's sixth floor apartment in a high-rise building.

The resourceful 18-year-old tried to ask the janitor for help, but when he couldn't understand her, she tried to scale down the outside of the building from the eighth floor. She fell, and died two hours later at a local hospital from internal injuries.

When her alma mater learned of her fate, the school had an impromptu memorial service on Dec. 12 where students dropped hand-written messages and memories into a prayer basket.

"It's just amazing that students from different social circles all had the same thing to say," says Presentation swim coach Marisa Watts Cozort, who coached Comey. "So many people, regardless of class level said she was their first friend."

Some swam with her, others worked with Comey on community service projects, Watts Cozort added.

"Barbara touched so many lives," Watts Cozort says. "She made a difference by being herself."

Watts Cozort met Comey when the alumna was a freshman. She joined the swim team and was a team member throughout high school.

"As a swimmer, you never knew what you would get," Watts Cozort says.

Comey would come in on one day and her swimming would be strong and fast, and Watts Cozort would be convinced this was her year. But then during an another practice, she would slow down and things would look different.

"She was always doing five things at the same time, but would always make it to practice and games and do her best," Watts Cozort says.

All that juggling, however, made her a major contributor to the swim team's late jar, where the swimmers plunked in a quarter every time they were late.

"Some girls would pitch in for Barbara," Watts Cozort says. "Barbara herself threw in a $20 bill at the beginning of the season because she knew she would be late."

But being tardy didn't affect her determination. Comey was a perfectionist, Watts Cozort says, she would try to stay after practice to get one-on-one help with her strokes.

"She was always trying to change, and I would tell her, Barbara, just swim," Watts Cozort says.

Comey strove to do well in all she was involved in.

The alumna was involved in campus life and was passionate about the causes she supported.

"She never got involved in something because it would look good on her résumé," Watts Cozort says. "These were very heavy things she cared about, like the homeless and contributing to society, something that would go over most teenager's heads."

Watts Cozort cried when she heard about Comey's death, but took comfort in knowing that the 18-year-old led life to the fullest.

"Barbara would have said to me, 'I did something silly, but I'm done. Carry on what I did and take care of the things that mattered to me,'" Watts Cozort says. "'Go finish what I started.'"

Presentation has scheduled a memorial service for the public on Dec. 29 in the school's chapel, 2281 Plummer Ave., 7 p.m.